


sugar.  butter.  flour.

by Missy



Category: Waitress - Bareilles/Nelson
Genre: Baking, Bonding, Cooking Lessons, Future Fic, Gen, Growing Up, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Three Things, cooking fails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8939209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Lulu is three years old the first time she asks Jenna to bake with her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/gifts).



**1: Sugar**

Lulu’s only three when she begs Jenna to teach her how to make cookies. 

Jenna says yes immediately. Her daughter’s interest in baking gives her hope that maybe she’ll want to take over the shop some day; that baking might lie at the soul of her daughter’s fate as well.

 

The three year old leans over the bowl as Jenna holds her on the stool, watching Jenna’s prized big red standing mixer whirl up a bunch of creamy dough. When it’s the consistency of oatmeal Jenna stops the machine and lifts two eggs from a nearby carton.

 

“Now this is how to crack one,” she tells her daughter, carefully rapping it against the counter before separating the shells and letting the egg drop into the mixture. “Can you try, honey?”

 

Raptly, Lulu takes the second egg, holding it over her head to reach the rim of the mixer, both of her thumbs pressing at either end of the shell. It’s just bad timing that results in her literally ending up with egg on her face.

Jenna calls a temporary halt to the lesson, mopping up Lulu’s tear-soaked skin. All the soothing in the world won’t hurt wounded pride. Jenna doesn’t tease her daughter, but the incident becomes a fond memory anyway.

 

**2: Butter**

 

“I’ve just gotta win first place, mama!”

Lulu was six, in competition for a ribbon at her Girl Scout troop’s bake off, and leafing through her Betty Crocker Junior Cook Book looking for something super impressive.

 

“You might want to keep it simple,” Jenna suggests. 

 

“But I won’t stand out!” she protests. Jenna tries to steer Lulu, but the child is a willful imprint of her mother’s former image. She insists on making a baked Alaska.

 

Jenna has to give Lulu her due – she’s quite good at mixing and stirring together something of shocking beauty. It looked wonderful when they pulled it out of the oven.

But it was melted underneath its meringue shell, gushing ice cream all over the floor before Jenna could control the disaster.

After cleaning up the mess, they used the rest of the brownie base to make a small dish of treats.

It got third place.

 

**3: Flour**

 

“How hard can it be to make a wedding cake?”

 

Jenna glances up from her cookbook, sighs, and looks back down. Lulu at twenty one still thinks she knows everything. Why shouldn’t she – her husband-to-be backs her up every single step of the way. They’re young and naive, and instead of staying in town they’re going to New York City to work in a big fancy restaurant. She’s going by the name _Louisa_ , which isn’t even her given name. Jenna is proud of her daughter and frustrated by her, worried about her and thrilled for her. 

She has, more than once, made an “I-Am-Angry-With-Lulu-Pie.”

 

“Plenty hard enough,” Jenna says, rubbing her lower back. She shows Lulu the recipe, an old basic one she got from her grandmother, which has been served at family weddings for years. “Would you like me to teach you?”

Lulu’s lips curl up into a smile. “I guess so.”

They manage to work things out over a flour fight in the middle of the pie shop kitchen, laughing the whole time. Jenna’s feelings about Lulu will always be a mixed up, beautiful mess. 

She guesses she wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you like this treat - I admit I put my heart into it. I threw a pinch of myself into the recipe, too - all of the various baking failures Lulu experiences in this story actually happened to me when I started cooking around her age!


End file.
